


Injecting the skies with honey

by justuntil



Category: Best Song Ever - One Direction (Music Video), Midnight Memories - One Direction (Music Video), Night Changes - One Direction (Music Video), One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/M, Heroin, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justuntil/pseuds/justuntil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Autumn Burns is a seventeen year old girl that lives with sinister intentions all around her. Instead of removing herself from these negative attitudes, she welcomes them. She part takes in the abuse of drugs and is deeply involved in a perverse relationship with an older man. Her bitterness expands graciously with every passing hour, and the conclusions of her own death constantly cross by her. One day in a pub, she is encountered with a being that challenges her world's melancholy. She does not know if that sudden sense of daylight peaking through is due to the way his vibes sing or due to his nurturing care-free nature. Maybe it is because she can sense the joy inside of him threatening her. Ever since that convoluted day, little Autumn has found herself a victim of a hazardous growing infatuation with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Injecting the skies with honey

 

**A Niall Horan Fan fiction**

 

Prologue

**For better**

**These blue eyes full of life are staring through you, and they are not even making a dent. What am I to you? The fire you light for release or the dry paint peeling from an old apartment building wall? I can be the heavy boots you wear and the bar floor they step on. Just let my pupils hurt you; let my heart eat you up completely and then I can be that for you. I promise on the blues that have yet to fail us. It could be just _you and I_ : my failures, and your pain.**

**For worse**

**There is fungus growing on the sides of the smile from where I attain my own contentment. It is pitch black, and I'm waiting for the rain to transform into a drizzle. Every day I would find myself talking to the molds. Why do you choose to be so silly and so insignificant? Why did you choose to grow in a place of artificial lights and corrupted intentions? I could never understand why beautiful things choose to breathe in the scum polluted cities deposit. I pick up all the fungi and throw it into the rain. “Turn into a little flower,” I’d say, “and do not follow me.” You can try to make yourself believe you belong to the rats and the black garbage bags in the night, but I couldn't allow it. At least not while the blues are alive inside the both of us.**

**INJECTING THE SKIES WITH HONEY**

**Chapter 1:**

My feet become sore under the weight of my heavy leather boots. The fact that I’ve been running for nearly half an hour doesn’t help the cause much either. I’m not sure exactly why I had decided to begin running in the first place. I was home an hour ago, sitting about sketching a picture of some dead flowers in a cheap vase that has habituated my room for at least three months. The petals were flaky and fragile, and most were lying on the carpets.  The old-school television set in my room sits on the floor buzzing behind it all like background music. The antennas all crooked and munched on, always give my television a grainy look. It doesn’t matter anyway. I was never one for television. The sounds of the English women selling the fitness videos’ voices oozed me. I felt like someone was in the room with me, like I wasn’t alone.

            It was a peaceful night. I felt serenity dominate my limbs. My eyes were nearly shut, and I felt drowsy, in the best way one could feel drowsy. I was shading in the nearly picturesque sketch of the flowers, my eyes concentrated on each detail and my pencil following with precision. I was sitting at the center of my unmade bed with my legs folded, and my back aching for it lacked any sort of support.

            _“And one and two. And three and four.”_

            There was a bunch of little eraser residue spread upon my sheets. It kept making my bare legs itchy and had me constantly getting up to hit the gummy specks away from the bed. I’d sit down again, not even considering putting on pants. I wore no pants under my oversized hoodie that smelled like cigarettes and rubbing alcohol. I had gotten used to the feeling of not wearing pants. It is almost liberating. The sensation of jeans touching my legs has almost become one of many very unpleasant things. Just as unpleasant as being told by your art teacher that you’ll never be anything to anything. Just as unpleasant as being sober with your thoughts one day after you had arrived home from college. Just as unpleasant as hearing your mother have sex with a man that is not your father. Just as unpleasant of having a mother that doesn’t love you like she can love a stranger.

            _“Five. Six. Seven and eight.”_

            Behind the buzzing of the jittery British voices I could hear my mother fucking. I could hear her fucking that fifty-something year old tea-drinking, crooked-toothed, posh English bastard.  His hair’s all thinned out. He wears supermarket trainers and you can hardly tell where his chin ends and his neck starts. He always wears his pants two sizes too big. He’s a big man-dork who loves Star Wars and constantly pushes his glasses back on his face with one bony finger. Apart from his physical unpleasantness, which is weirdly not what bothers me most about the man, he’s got this superiority complex, this intense self-obligation of authorization. Perhaps he didn’t get enough attention from his parents in the seventies; perhaps the big bullies at college pushed him around and shoved crumpets up his ass or something.

            My mother is beautiful. Of course, I mean this in a physical sense. She’s rotten in the inside. Her heart hardly pumps blood anymore and I always imagine her insides gray or a sick green color. But she’s got a beautiful and poetic presence. Her hair’s jets black, and her skin’s pale, like Snow White. When I thought of the German tale, I always thought of her. Her face is soft and ethereal. Her body is petite and thin, which is, unfortunately, the only thing my genes grabbed from her person. She’s only thirty-six. I’ve never seen such a beautiful woman as lonely as she, so lonely that she felt the need to give everything to this middle-aged walking sandpaper.

            She’s evil. Everything about her is evil. Sometimes, when she locks herself in her room at the man’s house, hours at a time, I think about spilling gasoline all over the tile floors and tossing a flared match onto the floor. I think about how she wouldn’t notice that the house was on fire until the neighbors started screaming. I think about how her first instinct would be to save her nude silk robe. Or maybe even her and the man’s fat orange cat _Cali_. Everyone would stand outside with the coppers and the fire fighters looking into the burnt house. The neighbors would be there as well sympathizing with them. My mother would be clinging onto Cali, spaced out, out of it, per usual. She’d look around suddenly and ask out loud, to no one specifically, “ _Autumn_ wasn’t inside the house was she?”

            My fingers suddenly stopped working. I started staring at my illustration. They are dead flowers, flowers that are ready to be chucked in the trash, flowers with nothing romantic, just simply infested with tragedy. I hadn’t noticed I had shaded the sketch until I properly observed my creation. ‘It’s nice,’ I thought. ‘I’m happy with it.’ My first thought was to give it to _Holland_. My second thought was to rip it out from its notebook and rip it apart with the beat of my mother’s moaning, with the beat of the man’s hard breathing.

            I ripped the page out and inhaled out. My fingers tensed up as I fought the urge not to rip the paper apart. I folded the paper four times before stuffing it into my hoodie pocket.

            _“Calum. Calum. Oh-Calum.”_

He was this man she had met on a fucking dating website. He was this man that did not appreciate her, that _has never_ loved her properly. He was this man that could never love her how my father loved her. He was a stranger. He didn’t know her. I hardly knew her. She hardly ever spoke in the last five years, how could anyone have known her? If she weren’t beautiful no one would care. Except for me. Except for my father. How could she not see that I’m the only one who could care? How could she not love me back? How can she keep saying his name?

            There was a sudden thump from the other side of my wall. I jumped, and found myself punching the wall a second after. Bad idea: my fingers began to shake at once, and the skin on my knuckles became flaky at once.

            “Fuck!”

            “What the fuck was that?” I heard the man’s muffled voice from the other side.

            “Shut the fuck up! You should be ashamed! Dirty posh grandpa!” My mouth was pressed on the wall and my voice was so loud that my throat vibrated. I punch the wall again, once, twice, three times.

            “Autumn!” She shouted, her voice soft and high. “Stop it godammit! Stop it!”

            “You stop it!” I punched the wall again. “You fucking stop it! Fucking slut!”

            There’s so much gas inside me. There’s always been a lot of gas, a lot of fire waiting to burn everything else down, but it has never been _this_ bad. I hate everything so much. Too often, I see people as unfriendly trolls striding about with big fat frowns on their faces. Sometimes, I can’t see people as people. I see people as walking heartbreakers. I see people as healthy flowers and me as dead flowers that lay on concrete: they take my power. They exhaust me.

            My bedroom door came flying open. The man’s boxers were around his hips, of course, two sizes too big. If his skinny body was not surging towards me angrily, then I would of barfed at the sight of his ghastly presence. He dashed towards me, his glasses not on his face, and his white hairy chest approaching me way too quickly for my liking. I hardly had any time to make a run for it, or even to move to the corner of my bed where it’s a little bit safer.

            The man’s hand goes for my face. The first thing I captured was how his hot breath smelled. The second thing I captured was his paper-thin lips. The third thing I captured were his red-gray eyes attacking me with their wickedness. He grasped my face with one bony hand, his large forehead wrinkling up. He dug into my cheeks harshly. I froze. I waited for him to hit me with his best shot.

            “What have I told you about calling your mum a whore?”

            “Technically, I called her a slut.”

            His fingers tightened, I felt like my jaw might be crushed, or at least bruised. I heard myself squeal half a second after the aggressive gesture.

            “Autumn. How many times have we got to go over this?”

            “Get your elderly cold hands off me Jack Frost!”

            His grip tightened once more. I squealed.

            “And who are _you_ calling a fucking whore? Who are _you_ calling a fucking whore, Autumn Burns?” He squeezed. “Who?” Again. “Who?”

            I screamed. “Let go!” I shouted.

            “Who?”

            “Stop!”

            “Who _you_ calling a whore you little druggie nymphet?”

            I punched him in the face. As he cowered to grab onto his face and curse at me, I saw my mother standing by the door. She was just staring at me. She had her silk robe on and her long black hair straight down and over her shoulders. She did not say anything to me. She did not come to Calum’s aid. She did not come to my aid. She just stared. I stared back for a while, admittedly with traces of hope. It was traces of a hope that was nonexistent.

            Calum’s voice boomed out on top of the television’s white noise. He cursed me. Basically he just voiced the usual. He called me a slut, a junkie, a delinquent, and _good-for-nothing_. I loved it. It was music to my ears. He also went on about how he cannot believe that he can’t get respect in his own home. I found myself smiling when he held his head up and continued to curse me with a tiny trail of blood coming out of his left nostril.

            “Oh shut up will you? Pathetic fucking idiot.” That’s the last thing I said before they had told me to fuck off.

            My mother’s voice had woken me up as it always had. It wasn’t a girlish voice but rather a very womanly one. At the same time though, it was soft like a girl’s voice. How could such a soft voice articulate such vile words?

            “If you’re going to act like you’re eleven again Autumn then fuck off.”

            I stood from the bed, the gas igniting my free limbs. I approached her, Calum mumbling profanities under his breath still. “One day.” I said. “One day, I’m going to burn this house down. And I’m going to glue all the windows and exits shut so that you can _burn_.”

            With that, they stopped talking. Both of them stopped running their mouths completely. Their faces were puzzled in a manner that told me that they did not doubt that I would do what I had just said I’d do. The fearful air that protruded from their auras made a smile break into my face. I shook my head at my mother in disappointment. She has no idea who I am and she’s never cared and _will never_ care.

            “You’re the bloody devil himself. How you could of came out of _Aubrey_ is beyond me!” The man stared at me harshly. He walked over to my mother and stood next to her while he spoke his last words. “Put on some fucking trousers and then fuck off my flat!”

            “I’ll fucking love to.”

            The small room felt cozier and cozier the closer I was to leaving it. I knew I’d be back. It had to be the third time in a four-month period that I had been kicked out. The bed was large and soft and the whole interior smelled like huckleberry. The carpets were always clean and the fresh aromas would hit me as I passed my pencils upon my notebook papers. Sometimes the smell would make me sick, sometimes it would make me feel as happy as I was going to ever get. The navy blue walls and the illustrations of blood, intestines, and dead flowers hung upon them comforted me a lot more than they should of. Especially when the room was a room that really belonged to a person that detested me and felt like the world would benefit without my presence. Still, I loved that room. I loved its serenity, and its loneliness.

            They stood by the doorway while I packed all my clothes. It was mostly just sweaters and boyfriend jeans. I packed all my mother’s lovely cosmetic products from Venus razors to hair mousse. I took her deodorants and her sugary-scented hand lotions. I took all my notebooks, pencils, and charcoals. I left all my college books and my school uniforms for it was the beginning of the summer holiday and I was still unsure whether or not I was to show up to year thirteen. Unsure whether it was of use for I could easily _die_ during this upcoming lonely summer.

            I zipped up the black duffel bag and popped on my light-wash denims. I took my time with everything while their eyes followed my every movement. I slowly pulled my rugged heavy boots on my feet while I subconsciously waited for them to tell me not to leave. I stood up and looked around the room and in my head promised all my drawings that’d save them before the house was to shoot up in flames. I stood up and faced the pair. My mother’s eyes were big, sad, and brown. Calum’s eyes were small, evil, and merciless.

They held on to one another. I knew my mother was seconds from falling apart. Before awkwardly approaching them I stood before my mother. My bag was hanging on my shoulders, my boots making me two inches taller, thus making me just a tad bit taller than her. Her eyes were wet already. I departed by kissing her on the cheek lightly. Of course though, she began to weep instantly, just as I knew she was. That triggered the mad noises to return and the silence to subdue. My mother began to weep. Calum began to curse me again. The fitness video’s sounds boomed in the background. The sound of my boots stomping down the stairs thumped. The sound of my heart boomed inside my eardrums. I readjusted the duffle bag over my shoulder, and tucked my heavy set of hair behind my ears.

_“You’re the devil, little Autumn! You and that man are the epitome of scum! Of scum!”_

            I opened the heavy red door wide open and I left.

…

            I don’t stop running because my duffel bag became too heavy or because I was out of breath or because my feet hurt, but rather because the pavement ended and a smelly body of water started. I know exactly where I am. There are miniature and rusty gray boats parked by docs. The water is brown and muddy looking. It’s already dark outside, so the streetlights light the exteriors. The streetlights’ flickering informs me that I am in the _bad_ part of London. It’s not the bad _bad_ part, but it’s definitely not the pretty picturesque part that you see in the films.

            I’m downtown. Downtown is where _Holland_ lives. I always find my hysteria taking me to him. It’s become second nature. While damaged people think about cutting their wrists or committing murder, I think about meeting with Holland. I think about his compact apartment. I think about his beige bedroom walls, and about how my images don’t compliment his room. I think about all the drugs he keeps inside his flat walls behind a white board where he writes his daily to-do list. The night chills my bones and fogs my thoughts. I look towards the body of water and the towns beyond. I hear the water moving, hear the tiny waves that the summertime wind creates. I hear dogs bark in the distance. There are no boats sailing on this peaceful night.

            I ran past two-family houses, project homes, and pretty stereotypical English homes. Now I stand by a smelly bay, with a tiny pub that lies in the corner where the pavement ended. There is also an electronics shop that seems to be closed for the remainder of the night across the pub. Next to the electronics store is a fish and chips shop that is also closed off. Surrounding these businesses are scummy little brown and bricked buildings.

            One-third of the brown building where the pub lies is red. The windows are tinted so you can’t really see inside. The top of the pub doors say, _The Scarlet Rose_ in large golden and elegant letters. The streets buzz with silence except for the waters, the skies, and the exciting shouting protruding from the inside of the bar. Either they’re watching football or the beer is extra ripe tonight. I contemplate whether or not I should go inside. Whether or not they’ll know I’m only seventeen. Of course they’ll know, I think to myself. I look like I looked when I was fifteen, and I still hardly reach 160 centimeters.

            I decide to enter the pub as soon as two older men in front of _Sally’s Fish and Chips Shop_ begin to smoke up cigarettes and suggestively mimic the gesture of masturbation. They chuckle to themselves as they continue to the gestures. One of the lads has a brown coat on, thick brown hair, and an acne-filled face. The other is of bigger demeanor and has big plump red cheeks. He looks sweaty and bothered. For a second, I think he’s actually masturbating. I stare at both of them intently, focused, and confused with their gestures or what they think they’re going to get by doing what they’re doing. If Holland was here, I think to myself immediately, he’d kill them: cold-blooded murder. He’d destroy them.

            “How about it princess?”

            “Yeah, princess,” the heavy one follows, “how about it?”

            I observe them. They’re both wearing graphic tees from K-mart. One of them a _Mickey Mouse_ top, and the other one a _South Park_ top. “I’ll cut your tiny balls off,” I say “and I’ll fry them in Sally’s fryer and feed them to the seagulls.”

            “Ooo. She’s a feisty one isn’t she?” Pizza face verbalizes as he bites into his bottom lip and takes a step towards me. “Sounds sort of American don’t she?” He smiles with all his teeth, all yellow and crooked. “I’ve never had myself some American fanny.”

            “Have you ever had yourself any _fanny_? Who’s easy enough to give it up to you anyway?”

            They laugh wholeheartedly in unison. It’s a loud guffaw that strikes me with brief fear. My eyes dart off towards the entrance of the pub again and as soon as my eyes return to the sleazy men, I realize that they are two steps closer to me. They stare at me closely, and for a second I stare back, frozen in place.

            “You’d let us inside you wouldn’t you sweetie?” Both their breaths are hot and smell like dogs. Pizza face gets very close to me and looks down at me. He’s very tall, at least six feet. His pudgy friend stands closely behind him, grinning away. They’re quite pathetic. I’ve seen this all before. It’s not the first time I’ve been approached by wolves. Pizza face picks at the tip of the fabric of my hooded sweatshirt. “Wouldn’t you sweetie? Wouldn’t you?”

            His fingernails were bony and had a blue tint on them. “I don’t usually fuck goblins but thanks for the offer.”

            “Oh, _come on_ beautiful.”

            “Yeah, _come on_ beautiful. Give yourself over to pleasure.”

            “Pleasure?”

_“Pleasure?”_

            The word that releases from my mouth echoes from a different source. It’s a source from the entrance of the pub. I can’t see who said it but it was surely a boy. I stare at the entrance and watch a young boy walk out of the warm place slowly. He’s got skinny jeans on with slits on the knees. He’s wearing nice brown suede boots and a casual white t-shirt. He’s on the thin side, but his broad-ish shoulders make him look a bit bigger than he really is. He’s got thick blonde hair, that’s darker by the sides, immediately; I can tell that the blonde isn’t his natural color but rather a dark brown, way darker than my mess of light ash brown hair.

            His face is scrunched up, and he looks rather upset. He looks up at the sleazy men with his arms folded. His eyebrows are stern. It’s almost like he’s waiting for them to say something else. I stare at the boy that has come to my defense. His eyes are bloodshot red, and his Adam’s apple moves up and down in a manner that tells me that he’s swallowing away unexplainable lumps that are sticking to his throat.

            “Leave her the feck alone. You pathetic pair. Like what do you think you’re goin’ to get out of her? What?” 

            The sleazy men scoff and begin to back away. I once again feel the drift that their closeness prevented reach me. I confidently stare at the boy. I stare at the beauty marks that scatter down his neck. I stare at him waiting for the masturbators to respond.

            “Oh fuck off, you Irish cunt,” Pizza face answers as he shakes his head and begins to walk back in defeat. “Mind your fucking business. Mind your own fucking business. Go have your twelfth fucking pint of the night.”

            The boy smiles at the sleazy men’s insults.

            The pudgy one follows pizza face and throws out, “yeah mind your fucking business, man!” And then, “Go back to your countries! The pair of you! This is fucking England!”

            Pizza face, the dark, better looking one of the pair, turns his back and begins to strut off, up towards the pavement. He sticks his hands inside his jacket, and you can tell, right away, that he’s a bit embarrassed of how things unraveled. His trainers squeak as he walks up harshly. His large friend repeats the words, “this is fucking England!” Then, he runs off toward towards his friend. He wears the same Nike trainers as pizza face, but his squeak a great deal more. The sound of the squeaks distancing make a smile break into my lips. A genuine smile, not one that I have to force.

            I look back towards the entrance of the pub. The shouting from before still continues like it did earlier. I look inside, the browns and yellows of the interior contrast the exteriors. The outside is lighted with cold blue streetlights and the moon’s bright glow. The boy’s eyes dart out towards me. He observes me for a second before he is able to speak. He leans on the doorway, and looks up and down at me looking like he’s trying to figure something out.

            “You Irish?”

            “No,” I answer.

            “Where are you from then?” He asks stupidly.

            “New York.”

            “American? Wow. What the feck you doin' here?”

            I purse my lips unsure how I should answer him. I look down at my feet and readjust the heavy bag on my shoulder once more. I kick a rock that lay in front of the heel of my boot.

            “Is that where you’re off?”

            “What?”

            He motions to my bag enthusiastically; using his hands more than is necessary. “Is that where you’re goin’? Back to New York?”

            “Oh no,” I say. “I wish,” I mumble.

            He looks at me confused, his hands still folded by his chest. He studies me once more. Then he shrugs. “Where are you off’?”

            “To a friend’s house.”

            “Movin’ in?”

            I shrug, “I suppose.”

            He smiles suddenly and shakes his head lightly. Grinning away madly to himself.

            “What?” I ask aggressively. “What?”

            “Nothin’,” he says after a light little chuckle to himself. “You’re just a wee-bit weird is all,” he says with a thick grin on his face.

            I take a leap back. I feel heat enter my head at once, and my face becomes hot, probably red if I was to look into a mirror. My face scrunches up and I shake my head at him meanly. I bury my fingernails into the strap of my bag and squeeze harder and harder.

            “Look who’s talking. Irish cunt.”

            “Whoa,” he responds with his hands out. “I hadn’t meant it as an insult.” “Whoa,” he repeats, his grin beginning to drastically wipe away from his face. “You’re just different, I dunno. I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to offend you or anythin’, _jaysus_.” The boy covers his face and shortly begins to rub it, clearly just as humiliated as me. He pushes his short hair out of his face and stays with his hands on his head while he speaks. “Fuck’s sake want a pint or somethin’?”

            I look at his red face, his red eyes, and the rich blue near the center. He sighs and slaps his hands down on his hips. I begin to nod. “Yeah-sorry. I want a pint.”

…

            As soon as I enter the room, all eyes begin to point towards me. The place is mainly filled with older men, the average age probably being thirty-five. The boy leads me forward, and I follow his stride closely. There is an army of men huddled up against the bar looking closely at the television like it could possibly disappear or something. I was right, they are feasting on a hot plate of soccer.

            The boy stops as soon as he reaches the end of the bar where two stools lie emptily. He turns his body so that he is facing me. His blue puffy eyes puncture me as they begin to observe me again. I drop my bag on the floor while I pretend I don’t notice the gesture for something about his dreaminess makes me believe he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. He doesn’t snap out of it until the bartender approaches him and asks him what he wants. I drop my head down and quickly cover my face with my hair so that the bartender doesn’t get the idea to ask me for identification. I stare at the boy’s brown boots tapping away at the pub floor.

            “Two pints, Jack,” I hear him call out quickly. “Cheers.”

            His toes tap at the floor four times before his body turns and his toes begin pointing towards me. I bring my head up slowly, making sure that the bartender is out of sights, or at least far enough that he can’t see my face. When my head’s all the way up, the boy’s eyes meet mine. He smirks at me, and runs his tongue over his lips.

            “Ha. Underage? How old are ya?”

            “I’m-I”

            “Don’t tell me you’re fuckin’ fifteen or somethin’ like that,” he whispers.

            I feel my face become hot again with humiliation. “I’m seventeen,” I respond a bit defensively.

            Two cider-filled foamy glasses slide towards the boy and me. I cover my face with my hand until the bald man serving the drinks has the opportunity to go away.

            “Cheers, Jack.”

            “No problem, boy.”

            The boy picks up the drink at once and begins to down it without hesitation. I see his throat swallow, the bone in his throat moving away like it’s nobody’s business. The specks on his neck are more noticeable under the pub’s bright yellow lights. He holds onto the glass with a mean grip. For a second, I think the glass might shatter. I quickly look to the lad, and to my glass. My head briefly begins pounding with a headache that I was expecting since the afternoon had begun. I grab my pint, and follow in the boy’s steps. I down the cup. I feel the foam stick to my top lip, and the taste of the crisp bitterness infests on my tongue.

            The boy slams his glass on the wooden counter. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and burps. Four seconds later, I slam my empty glass on the wooden counter, and wipe my mouth with my sleeve.

            _“Careful with me glass! Fuck’s sake!”_

The boy chuckles before his eyes begin to direct themselves towards me again. He smiles at me, and drowsiness captures his features. He turns his attention to Jack once more and makes a number two with his fingers once more. He adjusts himself on the stool before looking towards me again.

            “What do they call you?”

            “Autumn.”

            “Autumn.” He echoes.

            “Yeah,” I answer.

            “Want to know my name?”

            “No.”

            “It’s _Niall_.”

            Once more, two glasses slide our way. We do the same thing we did last time. This time it’s faster, because it’s almost as if we we’re racing this time or something. The third time it got quite funny, because it was confirmed that we were in fact playing this ‘who can drink their beer the fastest game.’ The fourth time, the chugging got quite complicated because people started to watch us and shout us on. It was complicated because I was stuck between choking on the liquid, and letting it drop on my shirt through my uncontrollable smiling.

            _“Chug! Chug! Chug! Chug!”_

            At the fifth, things start to get hazy. My headache becomes stronger, but in a manner that makes my whole body heavier, and makes me forget about it altogether. My eyelids begin to become immensely heavy, and my head moves around freely. Niall grabs onto my shoulder, the crowd of people jolly and full of life around him. Their football team won, and everyone’s rejoicing, everyone’s so happy, and beautiful. I feel my chest become light with his touch, feel myself smile with the tipsy people’s excitements.

            “All right, Autumn?”

            “All right,” I answer. “All right,” I repeat. “Super..”

            I stop _counting_ after six. The room begins to spin at once. I feel as if I climbed onto a carousel. The faces of the people move in front of me in lapses. They’re fast and unreachable. I rub my eyes to attempt shaking it off. The man behind the counter shouts out that someone ought to help me before I fall over and hurt myself. I am about to verbalize to Jack, that I do not need help, and am perfectly capable of walking about without aid. That is, before any sense of balance leaves my body, and I’m suddenly descending to my right from the stool.

            _“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”_ It’s a chant that comes from different directions, from different sources, nearly at the same time. I feel solid hands catch me before I am to slam on the floor. The fingers dig into my sides and with great force push me back up, and I am propelled back on the stool. I hold onto my savior for support, to prevent my falling over once more. A strong hand holds onto my upper arm as a way to steady me. Everything is moving past me too quickly: my physical world, my emotions, the beating of my heart.

            “Jaysus, Autumn. I reckon I forgot most of us can’t hold our liquor like us Irish cunts, huh?”

            I laugh. It’s not that funny, or even really remotely funny, but I’m laughing, and I can’t stop myself from not laughing. My chest hiccups, and I cling onto the boy’s shirt, tighter now, for I am about to lose my balance once more.

            “What a riot, what a fucking riot,” Jack says strictly under his glass voice. “Don’t let her fucking go. Don’t leave her here either!”

            “All right!” The boy shouts.

            “You get her the fuck out of here, boy!”

            “All right! Feckin’ hell!”

            I hear a hum of chatter coming in from all sides. I feel eyes poke me from all sides. I feel like I’m an animal entrapped in a transparent case for all to see. I’m making a fool out of myself. I know that, but I can’t do much about it. A hand is placed on the small of my back. I think about Holland’s boyish hands on me, all over me, steadying me and destroying me. I think about how he uses the words “love,” and “always.” And I think about how I’ve always wanted those words for myself, no matter who it came from. That’s what I used to say. I used to say it didn’t matter who it came from, but now I’m drunk in a bar and I want his comforts. Comforts that have no relation to the words, “love” or “always.”

            I gasp. No food or beer comes out, but the gurgling motions inside my esophagus assure me that it’s about to happen any second. I place my free open hand on my chest. I close my eyes and inhale.

 _“Get her out,”_ Jack repeats.

            “Have you no backbone, Jack?”

            The boy turns and hits me with a concerned glare. His blue eyes look animated. The blue is so blue that I wonder whether or not they’re real. Whether or not they’re in front of me right now.

            “Your eyes are very blue,” I say in a haze.

            The boy squeezes his hand around my upper arm, firmer now.

            “Oh feckin’ hell. Where does your mate live in, Autumn? We’ll take you back all right?”

            “Mate?”

            “All right?”

            “I haven’t got any mates.”

            “Earlier-earlier you’ve said-”

            “-thank you for making those guys go away.”

            “What?”

            “Thank you for making those guys go away. The pizza and the Pillsbury boy. Thank you for making them go away.”

            “Oh-oh! No problem, treasure. It’s what any decent person would’ve done.”

            “No.” I say. “No.” I shake my head. “No. I have to repay you now. I got to.”

            “Erm-can someone-”

            “-do you want to fuck me? I’ll let you if that’s what you want.”

            “Oh, for the love of god.”

            Jack makes a gruesome noise before he shouts, “get her out, boy! She’s causing a right ruckus.”

            “I’m quite good. I promise.”

            Niall pulls me off the stool. I stumble forward at once, pushing him back half a foot. A second stranger holds on to my other arm as a way of steadying me. The bright light’s exposure makes it difficult for me to keep my eyes completely open. I feel myself moving forward with the aid of the two boys. I see blonde hair in my blurred peripheral. I feel his concentration although I could hardly make out his features. The sound of excited sport announcers booms inside the setting. The rugged men in the Scarlet Rose break into a profound and sharp roar a second after the announcers behind the dusty screen scream, “Goal!”

            Thing begin to get heavier while my head begins to get lighter. I just want to sleep, I find myself thinking. I want to be at home. I want to be at home with a bed that consumes me in softness and oblivion. A softness and oblivion that makes me feel like I’m dead. That’s what I want right now. That’s all I want. “Is that a no?”

            The boy ignores me. Tedious step after tedious step, and we’re finally out of the bar. The noise from the place breaks into the night, cracking on the sidewalk with a familiar taste of happiness and lightness that the exterior lacks. My knees shake and I stop trying to be tolerable. I let gravity take its toll on my body. The grips on my upper arm weaken at once. My head slouches to the side and then down I go, down to the pavement, my ass slamming to the ground, and my back hitting the building of the well-wired pub.

            “Hey-hey. C’mon now.”

            I drop my head back on the bricked structure. I inhale again. The streetlights hit my cheeks, and I feel their judging eyes on me. I don’t care what they think of me.

            I shake my head. “I don’t care what you guys think of me.”

            All that matters is what _Holland Ford_ thinks of me.  So, I think about how _Holland_ would feel about this. He’d kill me, he would. He’d ask me why I didn’t go to his flat the second that my mother told me to _fuck off_. He’d ask me why I was talking to people I didn’t know; drinking with people I didn’t know. He’d tell me that I was ‘fucking mad,” and that I have ‘no sense of logic.’ He’d ask me if I love him, and I’d tell him I do. He wouldn’t believe me. Not at first. Not until after the second I would give him everything I had, just until he had everything that belonged to me. Everything: again, and again, and again.

            Niall descends before me, getting down to the ground on his knees. He leans forward, and I find that I subconsciously jerk my head sideways so that our faces are as far away to one another’s as possible. The hard gesture sends white little stars before me. My eyes become heavy, and my heart starts to pound so hard that I find it difficult to catch a breath.

            “No need to get fucking defensive, child. It’s happened with all of us. At least twice.” Niall doesn’t say this, but rather the stocky man that stands behind him, towering over the both of us.

            “Treasure. Where are we to take you?” I see three Niall’s in front of me, his blue eyes still very blue under the nighttime. His voice booms out and gives me the sense that the words coming out of his mouth aren’t really coming out of his mouth.

            “To Holland’s,” I mumble. “To Holland’s, I suppose.”

            “All right. All right. Where’s that?”

            “Twenty-seven. Twenty-seven, Flowers Close.”

            “Twenty-seven at Flowers Close, got it.”

            “Niall? Could I ask you a question, Niall?”

            “What is it treasure?”

            “Why don’t you want to fuck me?”

            “Erm.”

            The man behind him chuckles. “Oh god,” he states lightly.

            “Treasure, you’re twisted beyond belief. You don’t really want to have a ride with a random Irish cunt you’ve hardly just met at the pub.”

            “I’ve got to make it up to you.”

            “Got to make _what_ up to me, treasure?”

            “I’ve got to make it up to you,” I inhale. I hold on to my breath. My fingers dive into the hooded sweater’s large center pocket. I feel the thin crispy paper graze at my jittery and weak fingertips. I grasp onto the folded sheet, feel the top of my finger poke around the sharp edges. I take the paper out of my pocket and I hold it out. The boy stares at it at first.

            “Erm. Okay.”

            He takes it. He doesn’t open it. “Thank you,” he says awkwardly.

            “I hope you like it. It’s all I’ve got.”

            “Thank you,” he repeats.

            I’m not aware of how sick I feel until the boy’s three faces smile warmly at me. My stomach goes all topsy-turvy. I begin hacking and gagging at once. Nothing comes out of me, because nothing’s inside of me.

            “All right. Take it easy,” Niall says.

            I gag once more; my head slumped all the way down. I stare at my lap, at my oversized jagged jeans. I wait patiently for the moment when my pants are full of everything that I had eaten yesterday or this morning. The boy places his hand on my shoulder and rubs his hand back and forth gently. The night begins to close in. The darkness starts to fade in as my head pounds with the peaceful sounds of the waters and the sounds of the ecstasy that bangs out from all the voices inside the Scarlet Rose. All the voices that are _alive_.

            “Autumn?” He calls out softly. _“Autumn?”_ He calls out again.

 _“What?”_ I hardly even say it.

_“Exhale.”_

 


End file.
